Senior citizens are fastest growing segment of student debtors

The number of people over 60 struggling with college student loans is snowballing.

For most, the struggle is not a hangover from their college days. The strain is coming from helping their children and grandchildren pay for college.

About 27 percent of borrowers over 60 are handling loans from their own education, but 68 percent are working their way through loans they either borrowed or co-signed to help children and grandchildren through college, according to a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. An additional 5 percent are juggling a child’s loans with their own or a spouse’s.

For many, the debt has become a nightmare, with delinquencies rising and debt collectors hounding seniors for payments they can’t afford.

The CFPB noted a study by University of Michigan assistant professor Mathieu Despard, which found in 2014 that 39 percent of consumers age 60 and older with student loan debt had skipped medicines, doctor visits and dental care.

In 2015, the government seized some Social Security income from 40,000 borrowers because they were delinquent in paying federal student loans, the CFPB report said. That was a large increase over the 8,700 a decade ago. When people are delinquent on federal student loans, the government can automatically take money from paychecks or Social Security.

Private lenders cannot take the Social Security money seniors collect, but the CFPB has received numerous reports of debt collectors threatening to do just that if missed payments aren’t made up.

In a state-by-state analysis this month, the CFPB found that since 2012, both the median amount owed and delinquencies have climbed sharply among older borrowers. The number of people handling student loans past age 60 has increased by at least 20 percent in every state during the last five years. In more than half of the states, borrowing by older people has climbed 46 percent since 2012, according to the CFPB’s report.

“It’s a cause for concern,” analysts Stacy Canan and Seth Frotman said in the report. They note that seniors — when finished working — are among the least able to handle debt because they often are living on fixed incomes. The older borrowers might have been able to manage college loan payments when working, but not after losing a regular paycheck.

About 2.8 million older people were responsible for college loans in 2015, which is a relatively small subset of all borrowers, or 6.4 percent of the total. But borrowers over 60 are the fastest-growing segment of the population with student loans. The number has quadrupled over the last decade, the CFPB reported. In 2005, older people made up only 2.7 percent of borrowers. Their debt burden in 2015 was estimated at $66.7 billion.

The CFPB findings, Canan and Frotman said, reflect a trend of older people carrying more debt later into life, but also willingness to borrow and co-sign loans as their children and grandchildren need larger loans than previous generations to pay for college.

According to Federal Reserve figures, there are about 44 million people with student loan debt that totals about $1.3 trillion. Almost 52 percent of people ages 18 to 24 are getting help from their families paying their student loans.

Financial advisers generally advise people to eliminate all debt before retiring so they have control over their living expenses. Yet, according to the CFPB, 63 percent of the older student loan borrowers also owed mortgage debt, 67 percent owed credit card debt and 45 percent owed auto loan debt.

Debt is difficult to handle on Social Security alone. Yet, according to the Social Security Administration, 21 percent of married people and 43 percent of unmarried people count on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income. The average monthly benefit for 41.2 million retired people is $1,360.

A wide range of states has had increases of 50 percent or more in student loan borrowing by people over 60 between 2012 and 2017. Among some of the highest: Delaware borrowing is up 93 percent, Arkansas is up 61 percent, Georgia and Maryland is up 63 percent, New Hampshire is up 73 percent and Nevada is up 64 percent. Many states are hovering around 50 percent, including Illinois at 49 percent.

The median amount owed on student loans by people over 60 was $23,500 in 2015, according to the CFPB's analysis of Federal Reserve and Equifax credit data.

While nationally 12.5 percent of older people are delinquent on paying their student loans, it’s 20 percent or more in Washington, D.C., Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Nevada and South Carolina.

Some of the delinquencies and defaults would occur, according to the CFPB, if the firms collecting student loan payments behaved differently. Older borrowers have complained to the CFPB that when they were no longer working, they called their servicer and were not allowed to recalculate the payment that would be affordable on their lower income. Under government rules, lower payments are supposed to be provided when people have a change in income, the CFPB report said.

Gail MarksJarvis is a personal finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune and author of “Saving for Retirement Without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery.” Readers may send her email at gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com.